


nomen tuum

by vivific



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/F, Inspired by Kimi no Na wa. | Your Name., Miraculous Pride Zine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2019-11-14 16:28:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18056027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vivific/pseuds/vivific
Summary: Sometimes... When I wake up in the morning... I find myself crying.There's this dream I keep having, that I can never riiber.However...The feeling that I've lost something, always riains with me.I'm always searching. For something, or someone.I think I know when this feeling began.It was the day the stars fell.





	nomen tuum

**Author's Note:**

> A fic written for the 2017 Miraculous Pride Zine. I never got around to publishing it here because I had wanted to do a full AU covering everything that happens in the movie, but it's been two years and that... didn't happen so. Here we go. 
> 
> I collabed with Jamdraws for this too. [They have a wonderful art piece for this AU, check it out!](http://jamdraws.tumblr.com/post/166419027142/here-was-my-contribution-to-miraculouspridezine)

The air on the mountain felt clearer, but did little to soothe the burning in Lila’s body’s throat.

Marinette remembered.

Three years ago, from her perspective, Lila had gone to Paris to see her.

Tears welled in Marinette’s eyes. She brushed them aside and continued the sprint.

She hadn't recognised Lila. Not then.

“Marinette? Marinette?”

The scene sprung into her mind, like a floodgate opening and memories crashing through.

How could she have forgotten?

She was a collégienne at the time. She was heading home from Alya’s.

Lila stood by her for minutes, trying to muster up the words. Marinette could hear the other girl’s thoughts, as though Lila’s body still remembered despite the mind’s absence.

 _‘Salut’ is not too informal, right?_ Lila had thought.

Bravery wasn't foreign to the girl. And yet…

“Don't you remember me?”

Marinette, past Marinette, had regarded her with polite bemusement.

“I'm sorry,” she said, soft and abashed. “Do I know you?”

She’d broken Lila’s heart.

“N-No, never mind, I thought you were someone I–”

Marinette stopped at the peak of the mountain. She gripped her knees, and heaved in breaths. The lake sprawled out beneath her.

Hot, messy tears were falling from her face, and she knew that version of Lila had felt the same pain.

Marinette remembered seeing the tears welling up in the pretty stranger’s eyes. She remembered being concerned.

The subway lurched at a turn, pitching Lila forwards into Marinette.

“Sorry,” the stranger had said, accent heavy.

Marinette smiled, as she had in her memories.

“It's nothing.”

A soft voice announced the train’s arrival at the station, and the doors opened. People began to disembark, coalescing into a wave of pedestrians flowing to the door.

The strange girl gave Marinette another look. Her eyes were shimmering. Then, as if accepting her fate, her face fell neutral, and she made her way to the door.

Perhaps it had been the tears on her face, her general mystery, or maybe Fate herself, but Marinette found her voice calling out:

“Wait!”

The girl flinched, and turned back. A single tear had fallen on her cheek.

“What's your name?”

The crowd slipped past the girl, slowly pulling her to the door. The seconds ticked down, the memory impeded by its forgotten significance.

The girl’s hands went through her hair.

“My name is–” She flung her hand out, a stream of red trailing from her fingers. In the same motion, her hair fell in a wave of brown.

“ **Lila**!”

Lila’s voice, past and present, echoed through the mountaintop.

How had she forgotten? How had she forgotten that strange girl who’d given her her hair ribbon? How had she not recognised the girl whose eyes stared back at her in the mirror?

“Lila!”

If Marinette was back in Lila’s body, surely, _surely_ , Lila was still in Marinette’s.

“Marinette,” the winds whispered in her own voice, her real voice.

Marinette broke into another sprint. Lila was here. Lila was _here_.

“Lila!” The gravel crunched under her feet. “Lila!”

Lila, the girl she'd dreamed of, the girl she’d forgotten, the girl she remembered, the girl she lo–

Marinette raced along the mountain crater’s edge, straining her eyes against the dying sunlight.

Lila was here, Lila was close, they were almost–!

Something– no, _someone_ , brushed past her. Marinette froze, and turned.

“Lila?” She whispered.

“Marinette,” the mountain replied.

Slowly, cautiously, Marinette stepped back to where'd she felt it. She reached out.

The last of the sun dipped below the horizon. The light gleamed and faded.

Marinette closed her eyes.

There was a word for this time, for when it was neither day nor night, for when you might see something ethereal:

**_“Twilight.”_ **

Her voice spoke in unison with another.

Her eyes snapped open. Her body, her proper body, was tingling.

The girl stood in front of her. The same girl she'd seen in the mirror, whose life she’d lived on odd days, whose memories she saw as she fell through the lake.

“Lila.”

Marinette’s voice broke.

Lila stared at her, mouth open. She looked stuck in headlights, but no less radiant for it.

“Marinette,” she whispered. She inhaled sharply, eyes filling with tears.

They stepped closer. Lila touched Marinette’s shoulders, and looked her up and down.

“You're real,” she choked out, “You’re here.”

“We are,” Marinette managed. She was shaking. She laid her hands over Lila’s. The other girl was shaking too.

They melted into a hug.

“I looked for you.”

“I’m sorry,” Marinette squeezed the other girl tightly, “I looked for you too.”

“I just– I just–”

“You're very far away from Paris,” Marinette said. “Three years away.”

Lila let out a tearful laugh into Marinette’s shoulder. The city girl’s coat was abrasive against her face, but so, so welcome.

“How?” She asked, not letting go.

She'd never hugged someone for this long, not someone who wasn't family.

“How did you find me?”

“Took a swim in the lake,” Marinette said, pressing her nose into the crook of Lila’s neck.

Lila laughed again, and sniffled.

“Come on, be serious!”

“I am!” Marinette whined. “Do you have any idea how cold it was?”

“Yes, your body was freezing!”

They broke into giggles. The relief, the sorrow, the love, came crashing down. They were okay, they were both okay.

At last, they pulled away. Marinette wrapped her coat tighter around herself. Lila must have put it back on after waking up. The other girl didn't look bothered by the sudden cold of their bodies separating.

“Oh.” Lila’s eyes angled to the side of Marinette’s head.

Right, the hair ribbon.

Gently, Marinette began to undo the braid she’d weaved the silk into. Lila’s eyes remained fixed on her fingers, almost awed.

Her hair fell to her shoulders. Marinette took Lila’s hand and let the ribbon fall into other girl’s palm. Lila’s fingers closed around the fabric.

“I meant to return it,” Marinette said.

Lila’s face broke into a smile that glowed in the twilight. She wrapped the ribbon around her head like a headband, and tied it into a bow on the left side of her head.

“What do you think?” She asked, tilting her head to the side. The ribbon fluttered in the wind. Marinette felt her chest seize.

“It looks great,” she said, “It suits you.”

Lila giggled. It rang out, flowing and genuine.

And for a moment, they were okay.

 

“There's still a lot you have to do,” Marinette said, taking Lila’s hands. She smiled at the girl. “But I believe you can do it.”

“The meteor,” Lila’s face was stricken. Her face broke into a smile, and gave Marinette a wink. It looked both forced and natural. “You can count on me, Marinette.”

The mountain grew darker.

“Twilight’s ending,” Lila murmured. Even as she spoke, Marinette could see her form turning transparent. The stars in the sky shone through her, patterning her skin with pinpricks of light. Lila gave her another smile. “Thank you so much, Marinette… for everything.”

“I l-” Marinette tried. Her hand sank into the pocket of her coat. “I have an idea.”

She pulled out a pen, uncapped it, and took Lila’s right hand. The other girl obliged.

“So we can find each other after this.” She said, beginning to write on the girl’s palm.

“I won’t forget you,” Lila promised. “Not again.”

Marinette finished writing, and closed the girl’s hand around the pen.

“Not again,” she echoed.

They shared another smile.

Lila took her hand gently, and Marinette laughed softly as the pen touched her skin. It tickled.

“Don’t move,” Lila admonished, “I can’t write straight if you do.”

“As opposed to writing--”

The pen fell through Marinette’s fingers, and hit the dirt below.

A silence filled her ears.

Lila was gone.

Her breath hitched.

“Lila?”

She turned, numbly, even though she already knew what had happened. She spun on the spot, as if Lila had simply hidden in the blink of an eye.

No.

“Lila!”

Her voice wavered across the mountain, unanswered in neither echo nor response. Marinette clenched her fists, and cried again.

“LILA!”

Twilight was over.

Lila was gone, and Marinette was alone once more.

Tears, warm and unassuring, spilled from her eyes. She ignored them, and simply let them fall.

There were moments in life where she’d regretted not managing her time well, for assignments or for something as simple as catching the bus.

She shouldn’t have wasted her time with…

“Lila,” Marinette repeated, “Your name is Lila. I came here to see you.”

She squinted against the darkness of night for the fallen pen.

“Your name is Lila,” she said aloud, dropping to her knees and passing her hands over the ground. “Your name is Lila, and I remember you!”

“Lila, Lila, Lila,” she continued, “Lila, Lil- Lily,” her fingers seized the pen. She pressed the nib into her dirtied palms. “Li- La- L--”

The name of the girl, the memory of her, the emotions she’d felt for her, slipped from her grasp like water through a sieve.

“Your name is--!”

She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember her!

**_Why?_ **

“Please,” she whispered to the air, letting her eyes fall closed. “Please let me remember.”

But the universe failed her. The girl, the strange girl, vanished from her mind. Her appearance, her mannerisms, her name… Even the feelings began to leave.

“It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Marinette rose to her feet, slowly.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, to herself, to someone else. She cradled her hand, marked with only a single line, against her chest. “I love her. And if she loves me back…”

She let out a breath.

“Then we will surely meet again.”

 

Lila Rossi was well accustomed to the feeling the French described as _déjà vu_ , or the feeling of having already experienced something. It struck her at odd times, but every time it did, it brought back memories of the other occurrences.

But then it would pass, and she would forget until the next incident.

It was strange, mystical, and annoying.

Once she entertained the thought of a Groundhog Day Loop, that she was reliving events to change things for the better. But unless she relived her whole life in loops, it seemed unlikely.

Besides, what was the point of reliving something when you didn’t remember what was wrong?

That was what brought her present attitude to the phenomenon as _annoying_. How many times had she left the métro early, because she _swore_ she saw someone she knew? How many times had she stopped on a night walk home, looking at the back of a stranger because they seemed familiar? And each time it sent her heart racing, her mind screaming _there she is!_ at naught but a shadow.

It was exhausting, it was distracting, and it was so, so disappointing.

“Mademoiselle Rossi?”

“Yes, hello, you must be Adrien.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

She’d done it. She had left Aosta Valley, Italy for l’Île-de-France, well, France. It had taken so much from her, her parents had never approved of her taking on, in their eyes, such “a vain and shallow” job as modelling, but her grandfather had rested his trembling hands on her shoulders, and told her, “If you believe this is your future, then seize it.”

And seize it she had. By what seemed to be a mix of luck and talent, she’d been picked up by a modelling agency. Paris was so lively, so vibrant, so _new_ , and yet in some way, it felt like home to her.

“Why Paris?” her parents had asked.

Why Paris indeed. She could have gone to Milan, Florence, Rome, anywhere else in Italy. Why leave the country? Why go to a city she’d never even been before?

(Or hadn’t she?)

“Because modelling laws,” she had said. “Paris is just nice, and I might as well use my French somewhere, right?”

The first time she’d seen the Eiffel Tower in person, she’d been stunned, and at the same time, unimpressed. She had appreciated the iconic structure, had even gotten selfies taken, but something about it felt less like a foreign landmark and more… familiar.

She’d appreciated it in the same way she had appreciated the lake by her hometown.

 

Presently, she was assigned to a shoot with Adrien Agreste, the son of a fashion mogul. The shoot went well, and for whatever reason, Lila heard herself asking him to coffee that evening.

For whatever reason, he agreed.

She wasn’t interested in him, Lila knew, both because he was dating music producer Nino Lahiffe, and because she herself didn’t have an eye for men.

But, somehow, there was something familiar about him.

“Sorry, I was held up, a friend of mine needed my help with something.”

Lila gave a polite laugh, and shook her head.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t wait long.”

They chatted over palmiers and pains au chocolat, between sips of caffeine and glances at the television hung in the corner. They made small talk, minor details of their own lives. Adrien seemed to tell Lila nothing she didn’t already know, and yet…

“...the eighth anniversary of the Forteura Meteor Impact…”

As if on cue, both their heads turned to the television.

“Oh,” Lila heard herself say, “I forgot that was today.”

“Yeah,” Adrien’s voice sounded strangled, “So did I.”

Lila stared at him. He caught her look.

“I uh,” he ran a hand through his hair, “I actually visited the town, the remnants of it. With a friend, about five years ago.”

“Oh?”

Adrien nodded, looking quite bashful. “She said…” His brows furrowed. “I can’t actually remember.”

He gave a soft laugh, and took a sip of his coffee. Lila only nodded and returned an amused smile.

“I know what you mean,” she said.

A premonition, her mother had called it.

Sheer luck, her father corrected.

Lila didn’t remember warning her father to evacuate the city. She didn’t remember anything from that night. Trauma, maybe?

“It was a very beautiful town,” Adrien said, looking back at the TV. The screen showed footage of rescue and relief efforts. Lila didn’t follow his gaze. “There was a lake, too, I think.”

“Yeah,” Lila said, letting her eyes fall to the rim of her cup. “There was.”

She spent a lot of her childhood in that lake, alone.

There was nothing stopping her from returning, except the crushing sense of something missing… Something…

Like the entire town she grew up in, perhaps?

 

“It was great to chat with you,” Adrien said, in front of the métro entrance.

“The pleasure was all mine.” Lila replied easily. She slid her métro pass between her fingers.

“If you want,” Adrien began, “We could exchange numbers?”

Lila stared at him. There was something familiar…

“Sure, I don’t mind.”

They swapped phones, all the while something nagged at her.

Why had she been expecting him to pull out a pen? Was it 1923 or 2023?

“There.”

They returned their respective phones. Lila smiled, and stepped away.

“See you around then, Adrien.”

Adrien smiled brightly, and waved goodbye.

 

The métro was crowded, as it almost always was in Paris. Lila stood by the doors, and let out a breath. She shut her eyes, and leaned the side of her head against the doors.

The sense of déjà vu had returned with Adrien. But why?

Lila opened her eyes. The subway was going aboveground, an uncommon moment. The train ran parallel with another train, and for a moment, Lila locked eyes with someone through the windows.

Blue eyes went wide, a face struck in familiar shock. Lila slammed a hand against the window of the doors.

_I was always_

**_searching_ **

**for someone!**

She didn’t remember running out at the next station. She didn’t catch people staring at her, as she cut off sparse lines of people to get to the aboveground. Her heels hit the street cement with such force her knees briefly buckled.

She continued onwards, looking through the crowds.

Rain water splashed under foot, dampening her toes through her open sandals, but she paid it no mind. That girl-- that woman, she had to find her.

_That’s her! That’s who I’ve been looking for!_

**I remember-- I remember you! You’re-- Your name is--**

She raced across the pedestrian walk, looking all around. She didn’t know where she was going, but she knew, she _knew_ , the other woman was looking for her as well.

She cut into an alleyway

Paris was famous for them

she knew them well

and stopped at a staircase.

She looked

up

down

and stared.

_But what if…_

**I’m wrong?**

She looked away, to the steps, and began walking.

_I was wrong before, wasn’t I?_

**I can’t disturb a complete stranger.**

She passed the other.

_Why does this hurt?_

**_Why am I crying?_ **

**I can’t let it end like this.**

She stopped, now at the top of the stairs,  
and turned back to the woman.

“Excuse me!”

She froze. No, there was no way--

She turned, and looked up to the stranger.

She clutched the strap of her bag.

No, they weren’t strangers.

They were so **much** _more_ than that.

She broke the chains, and let her words run free:

“Have we met before?”

Tears blurred her vision. She blinked, and smiled.

Something missing had returned.

“Yes, I think we have.”

She smiled at the other, tears streaming down her face.

Memories of a

city

town

began to surface anew.

And she asked, even as the word reformed in her mind:

**_“What is your name?”_ **

**Author's Note:**

> Aosta Valley is a special administrative region in Italy that borders France (and Switzerland) and speaks both Italian and French, though Italian is the everyday language. It's been a while and i can't remember all the specifics anymore but I grabbed the name "Forteura" from [patoisvda.com](http://patoisvda.org/gna/index.cfm/moteur-de-recherche/chance_1081_2.html?q=chance&p=1&a=0&lr=0&ct=0&c=0&am=0&af=&fo=) which was very enlightening to look through. Honestly, I spent the bulk of my time researching for this fic, and it was very fun. 
> 
> Oh, fun fact, this AU started in 2016, so BEFORE Marinette was revealed to be part-Italian, so uh... yay!
> 
> Someday I really hope to write this as a whole AU, and possibly add more of the research I did (I still have my notes). But for now, this is all there is.


End file.
